CM Trading CEO Interview at Biznews Radio in South Africa

Covid-19 containment has cost millions of jobs and put pressure on many individuals, who have been forced to eat into savings to survive. In this interview with BizNews’ Jackie Cameron, Mr Daniel Kibel, the CEO of CM Trading, reveals that the number of active forex traders in South Africa has grown exponentially in recent months as individuals look at alternative ways to make money. Mr Kibel, who heads the largest international retail brokerage in SA, shares tips and sets out where the risks lie in trading. He has some useful suggestions for new entrants as well as more seasoned traders. – Jackie Cameron

This podcast is brought to you by CM Trading, the largest retail brokerage in South Africa. It’s a warm welcome to Mr Daniel Kibel. He is CEO of CM Trading and he’s speaking to us from his Sandton office. Mr Kibel, we understand that there are more than 1 million forex traders in Africa. How many are there in South Africa?

Wow, that’s a really good question. It’s quite difficult to know, because no one’s giving official information, but I think it’s quite clear that we can say there’s probably a few hundred thousand. South Africa is very much a hub of trading – it has been for quite a while, and CM Trading has been here since trading became popular in South Africa, and so we’ve ridden the wave. But certainly in South Africa and in the countries around South Africa; everybody’s heard about trading. Everyone wants to make some extra money and I think that’s why there are so many people who are interested in trading in South Africa as opposed to other places.

And I believe that you don’t just specialise in forex trading platforms, you help clients with other types of trading like cryptocurrencies?

Correct. To be clear, we’re a brokerage – in other words people invest, they speculate in order to make extra money, but they can do that through trading – it’s not just forex. It can be through cryptocurrencies, it could be through trading gold or oil – oil is hugely popular – people have made ridiculous sums of money in the last couple of weeks with the rise of oil; from around six dollars up to thirty four dollars. It’s been hugely lucrative for clients all around the world and South Africa as well. And we offer trading on indices such as the Nasdaq or the Dow Jones or the DAX. We’ve got other commodities such as cotton, palladium, obviously gold and silver and oil, individual stocks such as Amazon, Google. So really; we deal in the world’s largest markets. So, if you’re looking for a place to invest with minimal initial investment – CM Trading is the home for you.

How much do you need to invest in these different types of commodities and currencies?

With us, it’s $100. In my opinion, that’s not enough to feel the market; I’ve always said that you need to be putting in about $1,000 a person, but for people who want to just try and test it – $100is fine. If you think about it as an investment; if you’re going to open a restaurant or you’re going to open up a shop, or you can invest in diamonds or property or whatever it is – you’ll be talking about basic costs of a million rand just to get things started. The beauty of the investment in the international markets is that you can start with an investment of $100, which is – (I understand) to a lot of people – a fair amount of money. But it opens up opportunities and possibilities to pretty much everyone because everyone can afford $100, when push comes to shove.

You’ve been listening to Mr Daniel Kibel; CEO of CM Trading – the largest retail broker in South Africa.